The Virginian

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Why is it, Glenn Reynolds likes to ask, that liberal-run cities and institutions all seem to be hotbeds of sexism and racism? To adapt this slightly, maybe there’s a reason the left is so obsessed with sexual harassment and racism, because it is practiced so much in their communities and institutions.

These thoughts come to mind in looking over the peculiar Cosmopolitan magazine (yes, Power Line’s research staff reads Cosmo so that you don’t have to) interview with actress Amber Tamblyn, in which she makes the startling claim that the Harvey Weinstein scandal would likely never have come to light if Hillary Clinton had won the election.

The Paul Manafort indictment is much ado about nothing . . . except as a vehicle to squeeze Manafort, which is special counsel Robert Mueller’s objective — as we have been arguing for three months (see here, here, and here). Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment). This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the media call “the attack on our democracy” (i.e., the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in “collusion” with the Trump campaign). Essentially, Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from 2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering conspiracy.

...

Now, it is surely a terrible thing to take money, under the guise of “political consulting,” from an unsavory Ukranian political faction that is doing the Kremlin’s bidding. But it is not a violation of American law to do so. The violations occur when, as outlined above, there is a lack of compliance with various disclosure requirements. Mueller seems to acknowledge this: The money-laundering count does not allege that it was illegal for Manafort and Gates to be paid by the Ukrainian faction. It is alleged, rather, that they moved the money around to promote a scheme to function as unregistered foreign agents, and specifically to avoid the registration requirement. That seems like a stretch.

Even from Paul Manafort’s perspective, there may be less to this indictment than meets the eye — it’s not so much a serious allegation of “conspiracy against the United States” as a dubious case of disclosure violations and money movement that would never have been brought had he not drawn attention to himself by temporarily joining the Trump campaign. From President Trump’s perspective, the indictment is a boon from which he can claim that the special counsel has no actionable collusion case. It appears to reaffirm former FBI director James Comey’s multiple assurances that Trump is not a suspect. And, to the extent it looks like an attempt to play prosecutorial hardball with Manafort, the president can continue to portray himself as the victim of a witch hunt.

But the reaction of the Democrats and the rabid Left is unprecedented as they attempt to erase the results of a free and fair election.

And Trump is not your run-of-the-mill Republican "establishment" mush mouth. We may be witnessing the result of the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson “when you strike at the king you must kill him.”

I believe that Trump expected that the Left would act like any regular political party of the past when they lose an election.

They did not.

Instead, they attempted a political coup involving the FBI, the DOJ, riots in the streets … and a press that is 95% Democrats with bylines.

Trump is known for one big thing among others: when he’s attacked he strikes back. For the first time I have a feeling that some very high profile Democrats are going to end up in jail.

The Democrats had evidence that Trump was not your typical Republican pol; that's the reason he was elected. He's not conventional. He's not constrained by the "Old Boys" rules of the game. He's not a crook and will not, like Richard Nixon, allow himself to be ushered out of office by the establishment. If I could look into Nixon's soul during Watergate I would have seen a man who knew that he was doing wrong; and when confronted by the Republicans who went to see him he "knew" that what he had done was wrong. Trump is blameless of the things he has been accused of. and he does not revere the establishment ... he calls them the Swamp.

This will get uglier before it gets better. But then, that's always the case, isn't it?

As a retired FBI Special Agent with over two decades of experience in counterintelligence, I’d like to make a point that Scott and Paul are surely aware of, but which it’s useful to keep at the front of your mind.

Scott regularly refers to the Trump dossier as the “Rosetta Stone” of the “muh Russia” narrative. That’s true, but it’s helpful to go one step further. The real importance of the Trump dossier from a criminal law standpoint lies in the use it was put to for official government purposes. To understand that we need to know whether the dossier was used to justify the initiation of Full Investigations (FIs), according to the relevant AG Guidelines for National Security investigations.

The full relevance of these considerations can be seen from Scott and Paul’s review of just how threadbare the dossier really was in terms of authentication. If it was used in applications to the FISC with the knowledge that it was “oppo research” and likely not credible, and if that knowledge was withheld from the FISC, I suspect we’re looking at the real possibility of criminal conduct. And bear in mind that such applications (for FISA coverage relating to a candidate for President or a President-elect) would have been approved only at the highest levels before submission to the FISC.

To put two names to that process: James Comey and Loretta Lynch. If they knowingly deceived the FISC–and that depends, as far as we can tell at this point, largely on how they may have used the “dossier”–they’re looking at serious criminal liability.

All of this explains the FBI and DoJ stonewalling. Comey and the rest are well aware of the implications for them. Bear in mind too that the stonewalling isn’t limited to document production–important as that may be. FBI and DoJ have been refusing to allow their personnel to testify to Congressional committees–that is, personnel below the top few officials.

I have said this before, but the evidence against criminal actions by the Obama administration and its FBI and DOJ is becoming stronger. They though they would win and as a result left too many clues.

No one really expected that Trump would win, so the Democrats left too many threads to their crimes lying around loose. America has a long history of new administrations turning a blind eye to crimes and peccadilloes committed by members of previous administrations. Doing so is considered bad form and smacks of the flavor of a Banana Republic, where new leaders jail their predecessors.But the reaction of the Democrats and the rabid Left is unprecedented as they attempt to erase the results of a free and fair election. And Trump is not your run-of-the-mill Republican "establishment" mush mouth. We may be witnessing the result of the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson “when you strike at the king you must kill him.”

Haberman is a White House correspondent for the New York Times, a former newspaper. Haberman's father was a long-time Times journalist and Maggie herself got to know Donald Trump while covering him for the New York Post, giving her a useful relationship with the president.

The job she holds now was once held by Jeff Zeleny, who famously used his first chance to ask Barack Obama some tough questions by asking him what "enchanted" him most about being president. In doing so, Dreamy Jeff kicked off eight years of embarrassing non-coverage of one of the most corrupt administrations in American history. At the end of Obama's IRS scandal, the Fast and Furious scandal, the Benghazi scandal, the Lynch-Clinton scandal and — as we're now finding out — a possible spying on Donald Trump scandal, the American press corps almost universally declared Obama "scandal free." Like Admiral Nelson putting his telescope to his blind eye, they really did not see the corruption! They thus sacrificed their credibility on the altar of their politics, leaving themselves open to Trump's Godzilla-like destruction of whatever moral authority they had left.

And what was Maggie Haberman, then a reporter for Politico, doing during that time? Let's turn for answers to actual journalist Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson had to leave CBS News because they repeatedly quashed her exposes about Obama administration corruption. During her reporting on Fast and Furious, she claims Obama's corrupt Justice Department broke into her computer, planted classified documents and riffled through her files. She says the DOJ not only tried to smear her but also her whistle-blowing source as well.

In her excellent new book Smear, Attkisson describes how political operatives use friendly journalists to skew coverage.

"In a January 2015 strategic memo about 'Shaping a Public Narrative,' Clinton officials describe Politico reporter Maggie Haberman as an ideal, friendly journalist willing to generate positive press for the campaign. Under the title 'Placing a Story,' the memo states, 'We feel that it's important to go with what is safe and what has worked in the past. We've had a very good relationship with Maggie Haberman of Politico over the last year. We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed. While we should have a larger conversation in the near future about a broader strategy for re-engaging the beat press that covers HRC, for this we think we can achieve our objective and do the most shaping by going to Maggie.' It almost makes it sound as if Haberman is on the payroll of the Clinton campaign."

It does, doesn't it?

Since we now know that Robert Mueller's FBI covered up Russian malfeasance during Vladimir Putin's successful attempts to acquire some of our uranium supplies — malfeasance that seems to have included millions of dollars in payoffs to the Clintons — Haberman's friendliness with the Clinton people brings much of her other reporting into question. For instance, who are Haberman's sources and what are they using her for when they anonymously feed her stories about Muller's current investigation into Trump's dealing with Russia?

But then, Haberman says the relentlessly left-wing, anti-Trump Times has no bias whatsoever. "I think we try and play this straight down the middle," she says. Imagine how shocked — shocked — she's going to be when she finds out the truth!

From the Washington Post, a Left-wing opinion broadsheet that is one of the actors that helped destroy the American academia. Written by Lucía Martínez Valdivia, an assistant professor of English and humanities at Reed College and harassed by Stalinists student cadres.

At Reed College in Oregon, where I work, a group of students began protesting the required first-year humanities course a year ago. Three times a week, students sat in the lecture space holding signs — many too obscene to be printed here — condemning the course and its faculty as white supremacists, as anti-black, as not open to dialogue and criticism, on the grounds that we continue to teach, among many other things, Aristotle and Plato.

In the interest of supporting dissent and the free exchange of ideas, the faculty and administration allowed this. Those who felt able to do so lectured surrounded by those signs for the better part of a year. I lectured, but dealt with physical anxiety — lack of sleep, nausea, loss of appetite, inability to focus — in the weeks leading up to my lecture. Instead of walking around or standing at the lectern, as I typically do, I sat as I tried to teach students how to read the poetry of Sappho. Inadvertently, I spoke more quietly, more timidly....

This academic year, the first lecture was to be a panel introduction of the course: Along with two colleagues, I was going to offer my thoughts on the course, the study of the humanities and the importance of students’ knowing the history of the education they were beginning.

We introduced ourselves and took our seats. But as we were about to begin, the protesters seized our microphones, stood in front of us and shut down the lecture.

The right to speak freely is not the same as the right to rob others of their voices.

Understanding this argument requires an ability to detect and follow nuance, but nuance has largely been dismissed from the debates about speech raging on college campuses. Absolutist postures and the binary reign supreme. You are pro- or anti-, radical or fascist, angel or demon. Even small differences of opinion are seized on and characterized as moral and intellectual failures, unacceptable thought crimes that cancel out anything else you might say.

No one should have to pass someone else’s ideological purity test to be allowed to speak. University life — along with civic life — dies without the free exchange of ideas.

In the face of intimidation, educators must speak up, not shut down. Ours is a position of unique responsibility: We teach people not what to think, but how to think.

Realizing and accepting this has made me — an eminently replaceable, untenured, gay, mixed-race woman with PTSD — realize that no matter the precariousness of my situation, I have a responsibility to model the appreciation of difference and care of thought I try to foster in my students.

If I, like so many colleagues nationwide, am afraid to say what I think, am I not complicit in the problem?

At Reed and nationwide, we have largely stayed silent, probably hoping that this extremist moment in campus politics eventually peters out. But it is wishful thinking to imagine that the conversation will change on its own. It certainly won’t change if more voices representing more positions aren’t added to it.

But at the end of her plea for understanding she still doesn't get it. Stalinism isn't about dialog. It's about power; it's about crushing your enemies. Better yet, if you can get your enemies to love Big Brother your job is complete.

Hundreds of students, faculty and staff were whipped into a frenzy by factually false accusations against me and regarding my appearance. There were many false accusations. In this post, I’ll address just one aspect, that I supposedly posed a threat to campus safety.

The campus was misled into thinking that I, and supposed “neo-Nazis and white supremacists” who were likely to attend with me, were going to target non-white, LGBT and Jewish students. It was a fabrication.

A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.

A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.

Mueller has recently come under criticism for his role conducting the Russian probe. As the FBI director who oversaw his agency's investigation into Uranium One and Russian racketeering, some have argued he's not a disinterested observer on matters related to the FBI's reputation investigating Russia. There are calls for his recusal.

As of publication, every other media outlet reporting the story is sourcing it back to CNN.

CNN itself reported tonight that typically the subjects of grand jury charges are notified immediately, but in this case neither any subjects, nor their attorneys, have been notified.

CNN, meanwhile, did not disclose who affiliated with the Muller probe offered these updates. The network's report began with a reference to "sources briefed on the matter" but never shed any light on who the sources are.

This time around some very high profile politicians may go to jail

No one really expected that Trump would win, so the Democrats left too many threads to their crimes lying around loose.

America has a long history of new administrations turning a blind eye to crimes and peccadilloes committed by members of previous administrations. Doing so is considered bad form and smacks of the flavor of a Banana Republic, where new leaders jail their predecessors.

But the reaction of the Democrats and the rabid Left is unprecedented as they attempt to erase the results of a free and fair election.

And Trump is not your run-of-the-mill Republican "establishment" mush mouth. We may be witnessing the result of the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson “when you strike at the king you must kill him.”

I believe that Trump expected that the Left would act like any regular political party of the past when they lose an election.

They did not.

Instead, they attempted a political coup involving the FBI, the DOJ, riots in the streets … and a press that is 95% Democrats with bylines.

Trump is known for one big thing among others: when he’s attacked he strikes back. For the first time I have a feeling that some very high profile Democrats are going to end up in jail.

It’s well deserved, but sad at the same time. It did not have to come to this.

Friday, October 27, 2017

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.” The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing nonstop, the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe, because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty—into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.

Update on the Russia News

Used Fusion GPS to hire a British spy –
Christopher Steele, once head of the Russia Desk for MI6 - to contact Russian
officials to gather dirt on Trump and destabilize his administration,

Induced the FBI to pay the Steele to continue
spying,

Who then used disinformation supplied by the
Russians to get a FISA court order to spy on the Trump campaign.

This is worse than Watergate since Nixon's FBI was
not a willing accomplice to the attempted bugging of the DNC.

Even Hillary’s Campaign Chairman, John Podesta, has ties to
Russia via the Podesta Group which did business with both Ukrainians and
Russians.

At this point the evidence points to the fact that the
only person in the last election who was not actively colluding with the
Russians was President Trump.

Meanwhile the American press, the media arm of the Democrat
Party, has been wall-to-wall 24/7 accusing Trump of being a Russian agent.

This morning Senator Grassley called for a new Special
Prosecutor to investigate the Uranium One deal which now implicates Robert
Mueller, James Comey and Rod Rosenstein.

At this point, trust nobody.
The Russians may well have accomplished their objectives thanks to
Hillary, the FBI, the CIA and the MSM. The time
has come for a thorough airing to renew the trust of the citizenry. That means
a special investigator, but one with a wide berth to look into the entire DOJ
and FBI, its patterns and practices, and, let’s be honest, our intelligence
agencies as well. We’re living in a bureaucratic nightmare.

Democrats, Russians and the FBI

From the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:

It turns out that Russia has sown distrust in the U.S. political system—aided and abetted by the Democratic Party, and perhaps the FBI. This is an about-face from the dominant media narrative of the last year, and it requires a full investigation.

The Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee jointly paid for that infamous “dossier” full of Russian disinformation against Donald Trump. They filtered the payments through a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie), which hired the opposition-research hit men at Fusion GPS. Fusion in turn tapped a former British spook, Christopher Steele, to compile the allegations, which are based largely on anonymous, Kremlin-connected sources.

Strip out the middlemen, and it appears that Democrats paid for Russians to compile wild allegations about a U.S. presidential candidate. Did someone say “collusion”?

This news is all the more explosive because the DNC and Clinton campaign hid their role, even amid the media furor after BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier in January. Reporters are now saying that Clinton campaign officials lied to them about their role in the dossier. Current DNC Chair Tom Perez and former Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz deny knowing about the dossier arrangement, but someone must have known.

Perhaps this explains why Congressional Democrats have been keen to protect Fusion from answering dossier questions—disrupting hearings, protesting subpoenas and deriding Republican investigators. Two of Fusion’s cofounders invoked their Fifth Amendment rights last week rather than answer House Intelligence Committee questions, and Fusion filed a federal lawsuit on Friday to block committee subpoenas of its bank records.

The more troubling question is whether the FBI played a role, even if inadvertently, in assisting a Russian disinformation campaign. We know the agency possessed the dossier in 2016, and according to media reports it debated paying Mr. Steele to continue his work in the runup to the election. This occurred while former FBI Director James Comey was ramping up his probe into supposed ties between the Trump campaign and Russians.

Two pertinent questions: Did the dossier trigger the FBI probe of the Trump campaign, and did Mr. Comey or his agents use it as evidence to seek wiretapping approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Trump campaign aides?

Congressional investigators need to focus on the FBI’s role, and House Speaker Paul Ryan was correct Wednesday to insist that the bureau comply with Congress’s document demands “immediately.” Mr. Sessions has recused himself from the Justice Department’s Russia probe, but he and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein can still insist on transparency. Mr. Ryan should also reinstall Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes as lead on the Russia investigation, since it appears the Democratic accusations against him were aimed in part at throwing him off the Fusion trail.

All of this also raises questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The Fusion news means the FBI’s role in Russia’s election interference must now be investigated—even as the FBI and Justice insist that Mr. Mueller’s probe prevents them from cooperating with Congressional investigators.

Mr. Mueller is a former FBI director, and for years he worked closely with Mr. Comey. It is no slur against Mr. Mueller’s integrity to say that he lacks the critical distance to conduct a credible probe of the bureau he ran for a dozen years. He could best serve the country by resigning to prevent further political turmoil over that conflict of interest.

The American public deserves a full accounting of the scope and nature of Russian meddling in American democracy, and that means following the trail of the Steele dossier as much as it does the meetings of Trump campaign officials.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Here Are The 10 Most Important Reported Claims About The Steele Dossier On Russia

Last night the Washington Post reported that the infamous “Russia dossier” was partly funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier’s inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims about Donald Trump provided the framework for mainstream media treatment of the president for much of the last year and fueled multiple investigations. Here are 10 things to keep in mind about the dossier.

This Is A Lemon

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Michael Goodwin was weaned on Abe Rosenthal’s New York Times, rising to City Hall Bureau Chief before becoming Executive Editor of the Daily News and, now, chief political columnist for the New York Post. He’s been around, so when he says this, it comes from experience:

It’s not exactly breaking news that most journalists lean left. I used to do that myself. I grew up at The New York Times, so I’m familiar with the species. For most of the media, bias grew out of the social revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Fueled by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the media jumped on the anti-authority bandwagon writ large. The deal was sealed with Watergate, when journalism was viewed as more trusted than government—and far more exciting and glamorous. Think Robert Redford in All the President’s Men. Ever since, young people became journalists because they wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, find a Deep Throat, and bring down a president. Of course, most of them only wanted to bring down a Republican president. That’s because liberalism is baked into the journalism cake.

This is the sort of statement that really needs context, as the left-leaning of the Nixon era wasn’t the same left as today. There were similarities, of course, in that Nixon was viewed as inherently evil and must be taken down. The lives of young men in Viet Nam depended on it, so the platitudes were born.

During the years I spent teaching at the Columbia University School of Journalism, I often found myself telling my students that the job of the reporter was “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I’m not even sure where I first heard that line, but it still captures the way most journalists think about what they do. Translate the first part of that compassionate-sounding idea into the daily decisions about what makes news, and it is easy to fall into the habit of thinking that every person afflicted by something is entitled to help. Or, as liberals like to say, “Government is what we do together.” From there, it’s a short drive to the conclusion that every problem has a government solution.

So journalists were always advocates, forfeiting integrity for the good of the afflicted at the expense of the comfortable? Not quite.

But I was still shocked at what happened. This was not naïve liberalism run amok. This was a whole new approach to politics. No one in modern times had seen anything like it.

To anyone paying attention, this conclusion couldn’t be avoided. It wasn’t entirely clear what was different, the intensity, the constancy, the pervasiveness, the inclusion of an adjective before every noun, an adverb before every verb, but no story went unmolested.

Every story was an opinion masquerading as news, and every opinion ran in the same direction—toward Clinton and away from Trump.

For the most part, I blame The New York Times and The Washington Post for causing this breakdown. The two leading liberal newspapers were trying to top each other in their demonization of Trump and his supporters. They set the tone, and most of the rest of the media followed like lemmings.

During the campaign, every op-ed in the New York Times included the word “Trump” in the title. If it was a story about cute little birds, it would include a paragraph about how Trump would probably like to bite their adorable heads off. But those were op-eds. What about news?

To the age-old elements of who, what, when, where, and why, he added the reporter’s opinion. Now the floodgates were open, and virtually every so-called news article reflected a clear bias against Trump. Stories, photos, headlines, placement in the paper—all the tools that writers and editors have—were summoned to the battle. The goal was to pick the next president.

Where the old New York Times Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal would can a reporter who was conflicted or couldn’t overcome his feelings to stick to the facts, Dean Baquet gave his reporters permission to serve the cause.

Of the daily struggle for fairness, Baquet had this to say: “I think that Trump has ended that struggle. . . . We now say stuff. We fact check him. We write it more powerfully that [what he says is] false.”

Baquet was being too modest. Trump was challenging, sure, but it was Baquet who changed journalism. He’s the one who decided that the standards of fairness and nonpartisanship could be abandoned without consequence.

I can hear you muttering, “But he IS literally Hitler!!!” So why not report the facts and let the reader draw that conclusion rather than force-feed the reader the conclusion by twisting the story so that no one could possibly reach any other? Color the verbiage, omit the factual detail that might undermine the inexorable conclusion and, boom, you’ve done your duty as an advocate for truth and justice. All it cost was your integrity.

Goodwin offers three ways in which journalism could recapture its status as a legitimate source of news.

The mismatch between the mainstream media and the public’s sensibilities means there is a vast untapped market for news and views that are not now represented. To realize that potential, we only need three ingredients, and we already have them: first, free speech; second, capitalism and free markets; and the third ingredient is you, the consumers of news.

Goodwin’s third ingredient, dependent on the other two, is for readers to support the media it likes.

As the great writer and thinker Midge Decter once put it, “You have to join the side you’re on.” It’s no secret that newspapers and magazines are losing readers and money and shedding staff. Some of them are good newspapers. Some of them are good magazines. There are also many wonderful, thoughtful, small publications and websites that exist on a shoestring. Don’t let them die. Subscribe or contribute to those you enjoy.

Feel free to hit the tip jar on the right (and I appreciate your support), but frankly, this strikes me as the problem more than the solution. It’s not about what we “like,” which is the bubble that confirms beliefs and desired outcomes. It’s about what’s real, even if we don’t.

The evil of advocacy journalism, masquerading as news reporting, has been the subject of my invective for a while. But so too has the point that integrity, once lost, cannot be regained. Once the news media has joined a team, it can’t be trusted again to be the honest broker of news. That isn’t a problem so easily solved, and it may not be fixable at all.

You've probably scoffed at the crazies who claim that all those Left wing movements and rallies are a "Communist Plot."

They're not.

They're actually a Russian plot.

Really.

A popular Instagram account that promoted a militant form of feminism was actually run by Russian operatives, who successfully fooled Women’s March organizers into sharing their content.

The account, which operated under the handle @feminism_tag on Instagram, had tens of thousands of followers.

An investigation into the Kremlin’s cyber operations by Russian media outlet RBC named the account, which has since been deleted from Instagram, as among those operated by the Russians.

The account promoted the view, popular among left-wing feminists, that women don’t have equal rights in America. “We fight to achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women!” the account’s description read.

One post read: “I would rather be the ‘obnoxious feminist girl’ than be complicit in my own dehumanization.”

Another post showed a young, long-haired child holding a sign that read: “I’m the SCARY transgender person the media WARNED you about.”

Archived versions of the account show it had at least 46,000 followers as of March 2017.

The account’s posts were often shared on Facebook.

One post that was shared by Women’s March’s South Carolina branch showed a picture of a girl holding a sign that read: “I need feminism because my 12-year-old sisters already cares about how much she eats.”

The Women’s March page credited the Russian propaganda account for the post, which is still live on Facebook.

The Russians were not trying to get Trump elected; they were trying to get Americans at each other's throats. And when "Hillary The Inevitable" lost the election, the Democrats went for it. They marched to the tune of the Russian drummer.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

The words echo in my mind as I peer out the frost-framed window of 'Pretense,' a moderately priced new-American bistro on the edge of campus. My eyes follow clusters of students, shoulders hunched against the cold, criss-crossing the snowy Pentacrest like the exasperating strokes of a de Koonig canvas.

We all have a mission, I thought. For those faceless students: diversity seminars, Nam Jun Paik film retrospectives at the Union, maybe Dollar Pitcher Nite at the Airliner. For me: Von Drehle.

It - or rather, he - is the mission that has brought me to this dismal and lonely outpost on the edge of reason. Tomorrow I will make the dangerous trek north on Dubuque Street to Exit 242, merge into the river of semi-trailers on Interstate 80, and head west into the great red unknown between here and Boulder.

Andrew Klavan: "Trump's a Big Mouth; Journalists are Villains"

As Trump-loving readers of this blog have frequently complained, I am not always a fan of Donald Trump's personal style. I don't like bullies and I prefer a president who thinks before he opens his mouth. I do, on the other hand, very much like many of the things Trump has accomplished: the great judicial nominations, the taming of the regulatory state, the restoration of the rule of law at the border, leaving the silly Paris accord, the annihilation of ISIS, the attempts to hurry the implosion of Obamacare by suspending utterly illegal payments to insurance companies, calling out the NFL on its lack of patriotism, and calling out the media on a leftward bias that now amounts to simple malfeasance and corruption. That's an awful lot of good stuff, and it surely makes up for the big mouthery.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Kurz, you're 31 years old and poised to become the new Austrian chancellor. Do you sometimes spook yourself?

Kurz: Not in the least. I am aware of the responsibility I am taking on. Things have developed very quickly for me in recent years, but they didn't happen from one day to the next. I have more than six years of experience in government. I took the decision to run as a candidate very seriously. In May, I decided to change the Austrian People's Party and to start a broad-based movement aimed at changing this country for the better.

SPIEGEL: Can you understand that some people are a little spooked to see such a young man in charge of a country?

Kurz: If that's how the Austrian public thought, they wouldn't have voted for me. Austrians have had a while to get a sense of who I am. Other candidates have been on the political stage for a much briefer period than I. Voters probably were much less familiar with some of the candidates in the German elections, who were previously in Brussels.

SPIEGEL: Do you sometimes wish you had more life experience to bring to your new office?

Kurz: We are who we are. You can't become 30 years older just like that. People who are older have the advantage of more experience. But you don't have to despair just because you're young. If young age is the problem, you can take comfort in the fact that it gets better with each passing day.

SPIEGEL: Your appearance has constantly been written about and commented on. Does that annoy you?

Kurz: I can't say I've noticed it. During the election campaign the focus was on lots of other things, on issues, on campaigning style, on "dirty campaigning" and methods we don't want here in Austria. The way the candidates looked really wasn't a focus.

Feminist meet Muslim

NPR head doesn’t get it even after spending a year going into “Darkest America.”

The former head of NPR, Ken Stern, decided to imitate
European explorers who trekked into darkest Africa to discover how the natives
lived. For the head of NPR, Middle
America is unexplored territory. He decided to attend their native festivals, observed
their native religious ceremonies, ate their native food. He even went on a native hunt.

I
decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and
engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I
embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race,
hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show.

He was surprised to find out that the natives were not all headhunting
cannibals.

I
found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined
by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates
(“basket of deplorables”) alike.

Attending the natives quaint religious ceremonies he didn’t
understand the theological imperatives that brought them together, but he was
shocked to discover that hate was not the guiding impulse.

I
spent many Sundays in evangelical churches and hung out with 15,000 evangelical
youth at the Urbana conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect among thousands of
college-age evangelicals, but I certainly didn’t expect the intense discussion
of racial equity and refugee issues — how to help them, not how to keep them
out — but that is what I got.

He was surprised to find out that the native spear carriers
were not mindless killing machines.

None
of my new hunting partners fit the lazy caricature of the angry NRA member.

He even found that the natives were upset because the ruling
class ignored their needs.

I
also spent time in depressed areas of Kentucky and Ohio with workers who felt
that their concerns had long fallen on deaf ears and were looking for every
opportunity to protest a government and political and media establishment that
had left them behind.

Of course, while the natives issues have been ignored (or
ridiculed), the ruling class means well.
The people who are currently leading them are terrible people, they’re
agitating for change, they’re inappropriate who don’t use the right knives and
forks. And it’s having an unfortunate
effect: the rulers are losing the respect which are rightly theirs.

Some
may take pleasure in the discomfort of the media, but it is not a good
situation for the country to have the media in disrepute and under constant
attack. Virtually every significant leader of this nation, from Jefferson on
down, has recognized the critical role of an independent press to the orderly
functioning of democracy. We should all be worried that more than 65 percent of
voters think there is a lot of fake news in the mainstream media and that our
major media institutions are seen as creating, not combatting, our growing
partisan divide.

Some
of this loss of reputation stems from effective demagoguery from the right and
the left, as well as from our demagogue-in-chief, but the attacks wouldn’t be
so successful if our media institutions hadn’t failed us as well.

None
of this justifies the attacks from President Trump, which are terribly
inappropriate coming from the head of government.

Stern believes that the media needs to focus more on the benighted
natives, yelling at them in in their own curious language, dominating their
discussions, telling them the “right-think” in their tribal events, their religious
ceremonies, their governing councils.

You can’t cover
America from the Acela corridor, and the media need to get out and be part of
the conversations that take place in churches and community centers and town
halls.

Whoops. The Liberal
Culture has gone a little too far driving the rest of us away from the things
that interest the inhabitants of the Acela corridor. Having taken over total control of Hollywood,
music, the arts, the press, academia and the courts they are absolutely gob
smacked to find out that they no longer have the respect - or the attention - of
the natives.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

The latest chapter in how the Obama Administration sold out this U.S. ... to the Russians.

Andrew McCarthy:

Let’s put the Uranium One scandal in perspective: The cool half-million bucks the Putin regime funneled to Bill Clinton was five times the amount it spent on those Facebook ads — the ones the media-Democrat complex ludicrously suggests swung the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.

The Facebook-ad buy, which started in June 2015 — before Donald Trump entered the race — was more left-wing agitprop (ads pushing hysteria on racism, immigration, guns, etc.) than electioneering. The Clintons’ own long-time political strategist Mark Penn estimates that just $6,500 went to actual electioneering. (You read that right: 65 hundred dollars.) By contrast, the staggering $500,000 payday from a Kremlin-tied Russian bank for a single speech was part of a multi-million-dollar influence-peddling scheme to enrich the former president and his wife, then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton. At the time, Russia was plotting — successfully — to secure U.S. government approval for its acquisition of Uranium One, and with it, tens of billions of dollars in U.S. uranium reserves.

Here’s the kicker: The Uranium One scandal is not only, or even principally, a Clinton scandal. It is an Obama-administration scandal.

The Clintons were just doing what the Clintons do: cashing in on their “public service.” The Obama administration, with Secretary Clinton at the forefront but hardly alone, was knowingly compromising American national-security interests. The administration green-lighted the transfer of control over one-fifth of American uranium-mining capacity to Russia, a hostile regime — and specifically to Russia’s state-controlled nuclear-energy conglomerate, Rosatom. Worse, at the time the administration approved the transfer, it knew that Rosatom’s American subsidiary was engaged in a lucrative racketeering enterprise that had already committed felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

This investigation began when Robert Mueller, now investigating the Trump campaign, was the head of the FBI. It was overseen by Rod Rosenstein, who is now Trump’s deputy attorney general and the man responsible for the appointment of a special counsel. It is easy to see how both Trump administration loyalists and uncommitted observers might find these associations suspicious, and why they might turn that now suspicious eye on the Trump-Russia probe.

There is nothing in Tuesday’s bombshell revelation that challenges the validity of the questions being investigated by Robert Mueller’s office. Anyone who wants to undermine the legitimacy of that probe and attack the characters of its principal investigators, though, now has a trove of new ammunition at their disposal. This was entirely a result of the Obama administration’s reckless, ideological pursuit of rapprochement with Moscow and the Clinton family’s negligent rent-seeking. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for looking the other way.

Hillary Clinton and her dwindling cohort of image-makers are engaged in an increasingly desperate effort to save her from posterity’s reproach, but the water is rising up over their knees now. Theirs is a losing battle, and Democrats should resist the temptation to come to her defense. A transparent campaign of emotional manipulation in book form has managed to convince a handful of influential liberals that she is the real victim in all of this. That’s incorrect; they are the victims here. And the Clintons are their tormentors. It’s about time Democrats broke free.

All this occurred while Obama was president, and Holder was Attorney General.

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews....

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

And:

This was known early in the Obama administration, but Holder’s Department of Justice hushed up Russia’s crimes and hid the scandal.

Ironies abound: who supervised the Russia investigation? Rod Rosenstein. Who was the FBI director when the Russia probe began in 2009? Robert Mueller. Who was running the FBI when the case ended with a whimper and an apparent cover-up? James Comey. How any of these people can participate with a straight face in an investigation into President Trump’s purportedly nefarious (but, as far as we know, nonexistent) relationship with the Russian regime is beyond me.

This story belongs on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. But it won't be for the same reason that everyone in the press knew that Harvey Weistein was a pervert and a rapist. He was a Democrat and the role of the Press is to provide cover for Democrats.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Some people thought that when we found out that it was a Green Beret who convinced Colin Kaepernick not to sit, but to kneel, during the National Anthem, we would all have a change of heart and expose ourselves as hypocrites. Sorry to disappoint you, but No. I don’t care who thought up this stunt, even if the originator is white. Even if he is a decorated war hero. It is a terrible, stupid, insulting protest, and at the very least is ineffective and counterproductive. At worst, it is wildly divisive and destructive to national unity....

Nate Boyer, the Green Beret who thought kneeling was a nice compromise, has good intentions, but he is wrong. He is wrong about how we come together as a nation and he is wrong about the kind of damage this protest is causing. But he is right about a few things:

Simply put, it seems like we just hate each other; and that is far more painful to me than any protest, or demonstration, or rally, or tweet. We’re told to pick a side, there’s a line drawn in the sand “are you with us or against us?” It’s just not who we are, or at least who we’re supposed to be; we’re supposed to be better than that, we’re Americans. This doesn’t even seem to be about right or wrong, but more about right or left.

Did he just now notice how much hate there is? Does he think Colin Kaepernick and Donald Trump started this whole thing? He’s right, there is an enormous amount of hate being spewed, and it is almost entirely coming from the Left. The Right has been under assault for years, but maybe it didn’t register with anybody because Obama’s words sounded so pretty, and his pants’ crease was so mesmerizingly crisp. And it goes back further than Obama, but I’ll stop there.

Even now, when the country is under assault through the undermining of our national identity, what has the Right done? Simply asked that people stand for the National Anthem. That’s it! But somehow that is an offense that is too prideful, too nationalistic, too patriotic, too populist, “My God, You’re a FASCIST!” Get it? See how that works. Do try to keep up.

Today it feels like this national divide isn’t even really about the anthem, or the flag, or kneeling, or sitting, or fists in the air. It’s not about President Donald Trump, it’s not about Colin Kaepernick, it’s not about the military, or even police brutality.

Exactly. Will someone finally admit that whatever message Kaepernick wanted to send, it has gone off the rails? Someone please admit that. It’s the first step in getting this country back on track. Pride runs both ways, and the ones responsible for the protest need to take responsibility for their contribution to this disaster. Don’t ask people to apologize for loving their country.

It feels like it’s about winning. That’s what makes America so great, our sheer competitiveness. We’re winners, and we won’t quit until victory is ours.

He’s right again, only he doesn’t understand the game the Left is playing. It is a game we cannot lose. Somehow people want to ignore Kaepernick’s own words when he talked about the protest, but let’s refresh our memories:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Commentators complain that the second part of the statement is the more important part—the part about police getting away with murder—but how do you ever get past the first part to get there? Here’s how: You have to admit that America is a racist, oppressive country. So, Full Stop. Hit the brakes. I get that people really believe this. Does he get that other people think this is the greatest country on Earth and there is nothing that will convince them otherwise, not least of all because it actually is the greatest country on Earth? (I didn’t say perfect, just the greatest.) Those are the people Kaepernick needs for his issue to progress. He chose to send a message of hate, disrespect, blame, and shame. The very predictable reaction to that message is rejection. All I ask of him is to not be surprised when that’s what comes back at him.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

John Ringo:Deflection in abuse syndrome: Are Hollywood Actresses really angry at Conservative men?

The simple answer to the question is: Yes. But not because conservative men have abused them. Because they are forced to be silent, for various sociological and psychological reasons, about their abuse at the hands of the ‘in-crowd’ of liberals by which they are surrounded. And they lash out at any convenient target.

Let’s put this in a perspective that might make sense: A high school cheerleading team.

We’ll call the town this takes place in ‘Hollywood’.

When the new freshman girls reach high school they’re SOOO EXCITED! They were cheerleaders in junior high and now they might get on the JV CHEERLEADING TEAM and even be VARSITY CHEERLEADERS! YAY! GO HOLLYWOOD!

So let’s follow the career of a freshman aspiring JV cheerleader named, oh, Ashley.

As part of Ashley’s tryout she’s invited to a HIGH SCHOOL PARTY! (YAY! WE’RE REALLY GROWN UP NOW!) And at that high school party she gets a little drunk and ends up in the morning in a bed full of strangers (various male varsity jocks) wearing nothing but her socks.

She’s embarrassed and shocked and hurt and doesn’t know what to do. Because she’s never had an experience like that before. (Though she’s rarely a virgin.)

Does she call them out? Does she report it? Will it affect her chances of being on the cheerleading team?

At some point she might open up to a Varsity Cheerleader we’ll call, oh, Dame Judy D. And Dame Judy’s rather cold response tends to be: Welcome to the bigs, sister. Now shut up and act.

And so Ashley is now part of the herd. She’s one of the ‘important’ people in high school. And she probably ends up being one of the mean girls who makes life horrible for the nerds. (Herein played by anyone with (R) after their name or anyone who can be defined as ‘conservative’.) And the reason that she makes life horrible for the nerds is THEY ARE THE ONLY SAFE TARGET!

If she lashes out at the jocks and Varsity cheerleaders who are actually making her life hell, the best she can hope is a punch in the face. Worse SHE MIGHT BE THROWN OUT OF THE IN-CROWD! She might NEVER DO LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!

And when it’s her time to be the Varsity Cheerleader and some newbie freshman wimp is crying and sulking she tells her: Welcome to the bigs, sis. Now shut up and act.

And when that cheerleader finds a convenient nerd target (herein played by… oh, choose the R target of choice) she makes his life hell. Because she can. And she has to get the rage out somehow.

It’s all part of abuse syndrome. I’d wondered about it for some time but the ‘revelations’ about Harvey Weinstein just make it crystal clear. People who are subject to long-term abuse MUST find an outlet for the anger that bubbles in them all the time. They don’t, dare not for various reasons, lash out at their abusers. Think of children in abusive homes. How can they lash out at their parents who are abusing them? They are powerless. So they become bullies in turn.

Conservatives are an easy target. OBVIOUSLY they are worse than the ‘good’ and ‘decent’ liberal men who talk about how important feminism is all the time. Then abuse them. Conservatives HAVE to be worse! They HAVE to be! It’s just not getting reported, just as the abuse they are subjected to by the Harvey Weinsteins of the world is not reported. And since the people around them are ‘their’ tribe, they must, for various psychological reasons, be ‘good’ or at least ‘better’ than the enemy tribe.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t conservatives just as shitty as Harvey Weinstein. There probably are. But they are MUCH more likely to be outed by the news media. (Think of Newt Gingrich and divorcing his dying wife or for that matter the Access Hollywood tape. Interesting that name keeps coming up don’t you think?) Do you really think if a Republican senator was charged by a woman with groping her or masturbating into a plant, that the New York Times would kill the story?

In that way the liberal bias in media can be considered a God send to conservatives and Republicans. It polices our ranks. It is a major weakness for the Democrats and liberals because it refuses to do so. Thus you get the Harvey Weinsteins, the Weiners, the Spitzers who are all ‘protected’ classes until they can’t be protected anymore.

So do liberal actresses and models and all the rest really think conservative men are the worst human beings in the world?

Yes. Yes, they do. Because they have to work every day with some of the ACTUALLY worst human beings in the world. And they have to believe conservative men are worse. Otherwise, there’s no point to being on the ‘good’ side.

Thus when Donald Trump said some needlessly crass things and alleged to have groped women, they immediately saw in him not just Harvey (all the rest of the abusers in Hollywood High not to mention Billy ‘I did not rape that woman’ Clinton) but WORSE THAN HARVEY.

Because Trump has to be worse. They can’t really be slaves to some of the most vile human beings on the face of the planet.

Got news for you ladies: Yes, yes, you are. You enable them every day and by doing so you not only support the abusers, you directly or indirectly tell all the hurt new cheerleaders: Welcome to the bigs, sis. Now shut up and act.

You’re blaming the wrong side. You really do work with, and support, scum.